TSAA AOTY (Archers Of The Year)The TSAA uses a simple formula to determine and recognize the 4 archers each year that are the top in their bow and gender divisions of the three senior TSAA events - male and female; recurve and compound.

We take into account their participation at the State Field, Indoor, and Target events, and how they finished. If an archer shot in all three events only the top two scores are counted.

As the volunteer keeper of the numbers for the TSAA, Rick Stonebraker has once again performed the arduous work of assembling and tallying all of the 2004 scores for AOTY.

The 2004 Texas State Archery Association's ARCHERS OF THE YEAR FOR 2004 are:

Rick explains how: "The TSAA AOTY is determined by results from the three state championships; indoor, field and outdoor. Anyone can compete for this prize as long as they shoot the adult distances. The four divisions are: compound ladies, compound men, recurve ladies and recurve gentlemen.

The winner of each event gets 25 ranking points. Each point below the winner gets 1/10 of a point deduction from 25. For example: if John shoots 1000 and Smiddy shoots 995, then John gets 25 ranking points and Smiddy gets 24.5 ranking points. You only need to rank at two of the three state championships. You may compete in all three if you wish but your lowest ranking gets thrown out."

AOTYs have been recognized since the year 1983, the year after the TSAA was founded. In 1999, the compound archer divisions were added to the recognition roles. You can view the summary of all past AOTYs by

Longhorn Indoor Tournament 2004 November 19-21, 2004The registration deadline of November 12, 2004, for the Longhorn Indoor Tournament is rapidly approaching, and since space is definitely limited you should not delay if you want a place on the line. To view the times and registrants please use this link.And to view the UT Longhorn Club's website for full information this link will take you there. This event usually fills COMPLETELY up, so don't put it off!

Aggie Indoor 2004The Texas A&M Aggie Indoor Invitational Tournament was held October 29-31, 2004 and the results have been posted at this link. Everything went very smoothly and good scores were registered with a few surprises in the finishes.

Pass It AlongBe sure to re-subscribe if you change your email address or go to a new ISP.If you find this newsletter to be useful, please forward it to anyone you wish. Encourage them to shoot archery, and to become involved in spreading the sport. Remember to tell your JOADs to sign up for the NAA JOAD newsletter by sending an email to joadsubscribe@earthlink.net.

Have you seen these in your Inbox? {Re: Thanks! and "Photos" } Deadly Subjects Indeed!In an ongoing effort to help archers avoid missing time on the line....

To those of you that have written me recently asking why webmaster@texasarchery.org sent a file via email that you couldn't open, or (if you were protected properly by an antivirus software) had a file with a virus in it. Many of you have likewise received emails from friends, associates, as well as complete strangers that had attachments AND had subjects like the titles of this article.

Short Answer: I didn't. They, your friends, didn't. (well, one of them might have). Likely is that these were simply spams coming out of infected computers without the owner knowing, and the true "sender" is almost NEVER who is shown on the email. You have to know how to examine the hidden header of the email to figure out who actually sent it. SpamCop has a

free service that will show you who that email PROBABLY came from, and the IP address as well. I mention it only to show how difficult it is to know for certain who sent ANY email, regardless of what you see on your software's "From" box. I am not recommending the purchase of SpamCop's antispam product - I have subscribed to it in the past and am convinced it does no good, possibly does some harm. But the header evaluator they have for free IS useful to see who sent something.

Back to the title of this article: Virusmakers and hackers are constantly evolving their methods to make money or just make problems. Lately what they have done is to "social engineer", to create subjects for their email missiles that are most likely to entice human curiosity, to get YOU to just look at the contents. Subjects such as "Re: THANKS!" and "Photos" are enticing to the unsuspecting archer/surfer. These subjects are short, simple, and in many cases, a complete lie. Click on these emails, and best case is that there will be a photo that attempts to email out your personal information to the hacker who then sells it, and worst case, you try to open the attachment, and you expose your computer to any of a huge number of trojans, viruses, and worms.

If you see ANY message to you that has a "RE:" that means that it is a reply to a message you sent. This is currently a slip by the hackers, since you should be able to recognize any email you have recently sent. If you didn't send an email out with a subject of "THANKS!", then you shouldn't be getting back a reply, right? Don't open it!!!

Tip: If the subject has mis-spelt words, especially with symbols in the place of letters, do not open the email. These are deliberate attempts to avoid spam filters by altering the words to be machine-unrecognizable and are certainly unworthy of your time. Suggestion: When you compose an email please take the effort to make the SUBJECT show clearly what you intend - it can be plenty long, and be clear enough to your recipient that they will know it is from you, and not something to be deleted unopened. For example, I wouldn't send an email subject of "here's some photos". I would make the subject be: "Photos from the TSAA State Indoor Archery Tourney Are Attached". So be wordy in the subject! You increase the odds your email will get through.

Tired but Still True Advice To Archers Who Compute: get a copy of

Zone Alarm (pick the FREE download) to hide your computer from the outside world. Purchase a copy of an AntiVirus software such as Symantec Norton's or McAfee's, or at least try the free AV products. Get a copy of at least one spyware shield/cleaner, such as AdAware SE, to help protect your identity and personal information. Aside from the two AV mentioned, these are all free for the downloading. There are free antivirus software but since I don't use them I cannot recommend a good one to you. Most of these also have a more powerful version for sale as well as the freebie - read the features of each and decide whether you want to buy them. If you do not have an AV (anti-virus) software on your computer, you can use this link to safely check your machine right now.

Don't Surf Nekkid!: Consider these tools as important as your finger tab or your mechanical release and you will be a happier archer. Would you rather spend your hours repairing, debugging, and rebuilding your computer, or shooting arrows?

WIT! It Is World Indoor Trials Time.The Olympiad has come and gone so it must be time for the World Indoor Championship. USA Archery (aka the NAA) has released a bulletin with information on the World Indoor Championship Tournament. There will be a TRIAL tournament in Texas to discover which US archers go to Denmark to represent the US!First, a paragraph from the USA Archery bulletin:

The 8th FITA World Indoor Championships will be held in Aalborg, Denmark from March 22-27, 2005. If you are interested in representing the United States at this prestigious event you must participate in the World Indoor Trials, which will be hosted by the Texas 10’s Archery Club in Hillsboro, Texas.

****** No qualifying score is required to participate in this Trials Event. ****** **** NAA and/or NFAA Members are eligible to participate. ****

Note that you do not need to pre-qualify for this event! You just pay the fee and stand the line! (at the right time, of course) Hillsboro is about an hour directly south of Dallas/Fort Worth, and is loaded with . If you want funding for the trip, though, you need to have registered two official scores of a certain amount by January 15, 2005.

Paralympic Television Coverage - The Best For Last In This Issue!As I mentioned in the last newsletter's article about the Paralympics and Archery, the Outdoor Life Network has scheduled a program of highlights of the 2004 Athens Paralympics. They are taking the 12 days of competitions in 19 sports, 15 of which are also observed in the Olympics, and putting them all into 2 hours.

If you would like to see some world-class athletes displaying the very best of Citius, Altius, Fortius then you can do no better than watching this VISA-sponsored program. These people are competing for the pure joy and glory of doing their very best. By the way, many Paralympic sports have records comparable to the Olympics, and just wait til you see powerlifting or wheelchair rugby.

I urge all to give this program a try - while some may find it disconcerting at first, most of us will be able to see clearly how heroic these athletes are, what awesome feats they accomplish, and what fun they had. Who knows, they may even SHOW SOME ARCHERY on the TV show!

I have searched my DirecTV/TiVo projected programming listings and as of this writing, I can find a listing for it. The only two showtimes that I have found for "Paralympics 2004" are:

November 13 at 4pm CST and November 17 at 12pm CST. Be sure to convert these to your local time zone, and do check your local listings.

I must also commend the USA Archery, especially magazine editor Mary Beth Vorwerk, for their super coverage of the Athens Paralympics in the Nov-Dec 2004 issue of the USA Archery Magazine. If you do not get this magazine then you are probably not a member of the NAA, all of whom get it for free with their paid membership. And you are missing some great stories about archery!

PRESSTIME NEWS BULLETIN UPDATE!I just received the following news release from Beth Bourgeois of the USOC. It is printed here in it's entirety without editing:_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________U.S. PARALYMPICS: Two-Hour Special on 2004 Paralympic Games to Air Saturday, November 13th

Tune-in For 2004 Paralympic Games Coverage

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (November 8, 2004) – U.S. Paralympics, a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee, is pleased to announce that Visa USA and the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) are airing a two-hour program recapping the 11 days of competition from the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. The show can be seen on OLN with limited commercial interruptions on Saturday, November 13, 5-7 p.m. Eastern Time.

“These are the stories that need to be told,” says track & field athlete April Holmes (Somerdale, N.J.).

After being involved in a train accident which resulted in the loss of her left leg below the knee, Holmes was told about U.S. Paralympics by her doctor. “That information changed my life. I had never heard about an organization like U.S. Paralympics before my accident, and since I had always been an athlete, it was a natural fit.”

Holmes now owns the world record in both the 100m and 200m. Like many athletes, Holmes has overcome a physical disability to compete on an elite level at the 2004 Paralympic Games.

Other athletes included in the two-hour special are two-time Paralympian and track & field athlete Marlon Shirley, the gold-medal winning Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team, twelve-year old swimming sensation Jessica Long and seven-time gold medalist in swimming, Erin Popovich, among others.

Besides athlete features, the program will highlight competition and recap events at the 2004 Paralympic Games.

The two-hour program is hosted by Harry Smith, anchor of CBS’s The Early Show. Smith, along with co-host Joan London, also covered the 2002 Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Two-time Paralympian and wheelchair track athlete Cheri Blauwet (Larchwood, Iowa) says, “The athletes are thrilled that the Games will air in the U.S. For all of us, the Games are the most important competition and the fact that friends, family and fans of U.S. Paralympics will now be able to watch is absolutely wonderful.”

Be sure to tune in to OLN on Saturday, November 13, 5-7 p.m. Eastern Time. A second telecast will air on Wednesday, November 17, 1-3 p.m. Eastern Time.

About VisaVisa is the world’s leading payment brand and largest payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumer and business customers with a variety of payment alternatives. Nearly 21,000 financial institutions worldwide rely on Visa’s processing system, VisaNet, to facilitate $2.5 trillion in annual transaction volume with virtually 100-percent reliability. Cardholders in more than 150 countries carry more than 1 billion Visa-branded cards, accepted at millions of locations worldwide. Within the United States, nearly 14,000 financial institutions issue 429 million Visa cards, accounting for more than $1.1 trillion in annual transaction volume. Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and mobilize financial resources – anytime, anywhere, any way.

About OLNOutdoor Life® Network is the leader in outdoor adventure and action sports television. Now in more than 61 million homes, OLN® is the home of best-in-class events like The Tour de France, The Gravity Games, Professional Bull Riders (PBR), and USSA Skiing. The Network offers exclusive programming in four primary areas: Outdoor Adventure, Action Sports, Field & Stream® and Bulls & Rodeo. OLN is distributed via cable systems and satellite operators throughout the continental United States and Hawaii.

About U.S. Paralympics:U.S. Paralympics is a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee and is dedicated to becoming the world leader in the Paralympic sports movement and promoting excellence in the lives of all persons with physical disabilities. Visit the U.S. Paralympics website at www.usparalympics.org.

For more information, please contact Beth Bourgeois, U.S. Paralympics at (719)866-2039 or via email at beth.bourgeois@usoc.org.